Items related to Report from the select committee on secondary punishments
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1833 Excerpt: ...in the degree of moral and religious instruction. At some few gaols no chaplain has yet been appointed, and no religious duties are performed: in several others the attendance of the clergyman is limited to Sundays, and in many cases the duties of reading daily prayers are left to be performed by the keeper. Bibles, testaments, prayer-books, &c. are not generally provided. At a few prisons schools are established; but at several no instruction is given to juvenile offenders in either reading or writing. The treatment of the sick differs materially. At many gaols, a surgeon attends only when sent for; at some he visits twice a week, and at others daily. Several prisons are still without any infirmary, or suitable rooms for the separation of the sick. Further measures are therefore indispensable to insure obedience to the law. If even the Returns required by the Prison Acts were uniformly Vide Appendix, page 70. transmitted, it would be impossible to ascertain the actual condition of a gaol, from answers to questions framed generally, and with reference to all description of prisons. It is besides obvious that the regulation of gaols should be reduced to a system, and that the rules in force should be compared and assimilated as nearly as circumstances will admit. This uniformity is as much required by the interests of justice as by the welfare of the prisoner. It is only right that the jury who convict, and the judge who condemns, should have a perfect knowledge of the discipline and punishment to which they are about to consign an offender. Nothing can at present, in many cases, be more vague and indefinite than a sentence of punishment when pronounced from the bench. A culprit is sentenced to hard labour; but the nature of that labour--on which in poin...
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